Flowers in the Desert
by whipplefilter
Summary: Lightning's yelled at Cruz before. He's championed her; he's consoled her. But this is the first time he's ever lied to her.


_This was written for the prompt, "Let's say Cruz goes to a party (gets drunk and everything) unbeknownst to Lightning. She comes back and he finds her at the entrance of the town, looking very exhausted. She even vomits in front of him. What does he do? Does he yell? Does he panic? What happens?"_

* * *

Lightning's yelled at Cruz before. He's championed her; he's consoled her. But this is the first time he's ever lied to her.

–

It was a music festival. One of those desert affairs she'd heard so much about but never attended. She'd liked the idea of them–blazing sun glinting off of everyone, music everywhere, all the time, of all sorts. Apparently it happened every year, though Lightning hadn't seemed to know much about it. (Cruz is beginning to suspect that outside of racing, Lightning's life is deeply boring. But he seems to enjoy it well enough.)

Fillmore had had a bit more intel–in that he's familiar with both deserts and music–but his grasp of the music scene dwindles where anything past 1973 is concerned. He'd only told her that if she likes music, she should totally go, man. Nothing beats music against red rock, resonating in the canyons, murmuring low when the sun goes down.

And so Cruz had gone.

And so here Cruz is. She makes it to the edge of town, because when all other options are desert, Radiator Springs is not hard to find. But the edges of the buildings pulse in and out like crayon sketches and the road doesn't feel right beneath her and suddenly, she is very afraid that she is going to hurt something. One of the buildings, a statue–or, Heaven forbid, scrape the lime-white plaster of the Doc Hudson museum facade. Or maybe it'd be worse, and she'd hurt a car. What if she hurts someone?

What if?

Cruz pulls to the side of the road, sits in a sizable tumbleweed, and cries.

She must doze off, because immediately, the sun is up and Lightning's in her face. When she squeaks, gives her engine a startled rev, Lightning must decide that she's okay, because he backs up.

He asks three questions in rapid succession. "I thought Fillmore said you were gonna camp out for the night? What's wrong? Did you get lost?"

Why he'd think she could get so lost she wouldn't know Radiator Springs from a mile away, she's not sure, but it sounds better than the reality. Now that she's awake, last night's alcohol is quickly becoming this morning's hangover, and the reality feels horrible.

It's not the nausea caught in her throat, though that's there too.

She'd messed up. What had been fun now felt stupid, she'd lost control, she hadn't been careful enough. She's responsible–she is. But she hadn't been, and she'd driven here drunk, and it all just felt so. _Stupid._ It was all just stupid and reckless and stupid and childish. She hadn't been the kind of girl she knows she is. She wants to cry again.

"I just wanted to come back," she says. It doesn't clarify much, but at least it's not a lie.

Lightning eyes her quizzically. "Are you okay?" he asks. But before she can answer–before she has to lie–he says, "Never mind. Maybe you should head back to town and get some real sleep."

She must look awful, but maybe she just looks like she spent the night in a tumbleweed. Maybe he can't tell what he's looking at. Cruz isn't sure whether to be relieved or not. She doesn't want to disappoint him; but she knows that if he doesn't know already, she can't keep this secret. She'd rather he just know without her having to confess.

She looks down at her tires, and her gaze flicks to Lightning's. Dirt track tires. He must've been headed out to the butte then.

"Can I go with you?" Cruz asks. Her voice sounds small. In her mind, the track beckons: It is retribution. It's forgiveness. She can shed the night and all will be well.

"You don't need to ask, you know," Lightning points out. "Willy's Butte doesn't have a waiting list."

He smiles, but a question lingers underneath it. A minor interrogation.

Still, he lets her follow, because it is dawn and it's summer and it's going to be a hot one. Because this is his time on his track and even in her cotton-headed hangover haze, Cruz watches him get visibly antsy about getting out there right now, right this moment, no more detours. If Lightning doesn't get his track time, he loses his mind, and truth be told, it's all he's thinking about right now. Any of Cruz's potential transgressions fall to the wayside in the face of it.

At least until they pick up speed.

Cruz initially figures a few laps will be a great way to wipe the slate clean and feel a little more alive–because what isn't cured by vigorous exercise? But for all it clears her brain it doesn't do the same for her pipes.

She spins out, and is violently ill down the dusty side of the canyon.

And Lightning, well. Of course he sees, and now of course he knows. The worst part is, he doesn't seem terribly surprised.

Had he known, then? This entire time, had he known?

He advises her to let it all out. She'll feel better faster if she doesn't fight it. He strokes one of her front tires with her own, and part of Cruz wants to lean into this, wants to let Lightning offer some kind of absolution and tell her she doesn't need to feel bad about what happened last night, and make it so it's like it never happened.

Part of her just feels worse, because she knows she doesn't deserve it. She holds herself to higher standards than that.

"I didn't think–" she starts, hiccuping. Her mouth tastes like dirty oil. "I didn't think that–"

That, what? That she'd get that drunk? That's just an excuse.

"I didn't think," she says, and stops. It's the only real way that sentence should go. "Please don't be mad."

"I'm not mad," says Lightning. And it's true. He's not yelling. Lightning, incensed, has a tendency to rant. But he stops rubbing her tire, and doesn't say much more.

"Maybe you should go back to town now," he suggests.

"I'm sorry," Cruz blurts out.

"You've got nothing to apologize for. I mean, not to me, anyway," he says. "Look, it's _fine_ , Cruz."

It occurs to Cruz that he's lying to her. (Lying for her?) She knows it's not fine, and surely he does, too.

He takes her home.

–

He's avoiding her. At first Lightning's his ordinary kind of scarce and Cruz is asleep, then he's busy on the Cozy Cone phones. But the whole town tends to get quiet around siesta time and even then, he doesn't come looking for her.

"But he was sittin' right there with all of us at Flo's. Didn't you notice him? Though between you and me, that blue's harder to pick out in a field than the red so maybe–"

"I know he was _there_ , Mater," Cruz revises. "But you know how sometimes he's talking with you but he's not really talking with you?"

Mater blinks at her.

"He looks at me different," Cruz confesses. He does; she can tell. It hurts to admit it because the admission makes it real. In Cruz's worst nightmares, which she's been playing and replaying for herself all day, this is what changes everything. One night of stupid, stupid mistakes and Lightning McQueen never looks at her the same way again.

Mater blinks at her again. "Maybe he just looks different on account of the blue–" he starts.

"Mater, I said he looks at _me_ different! I messed up! And now when Mr. McQueen looks at me–"

"I heard you, I heard you!" he says. "I'm just saying maybe his face looks different on account of the blue. He's gotta be your crew chief now, ain't he?"

Cruz furrows her brow. "Yeah, but–"

"But shoot, I wouldn't worry to much about it," Mater assures her. "If you think the worst he's seen out here is a little hullabaloo leaking out from the desert, you ain't been here long enough!"

Mater sinks lazily into his suspension. "Plus 'ol Doc always said Lightning was the worst thing to ever happen to this town. Right up 'til the day he died he was saying that! Lightning ain't mad. You just got a little Radiator Springs on you now, like the rest of us!"

Mater gives her a cheerful jounce, and her headache knocks back to her temples. The spots where her mirrors used to be itch.

–

Ramone just laughs at her. "Look, I never get mixed up in this kinda stuff. I run a body shop, and I'm not tryna moonlight as a gossip mill, you know?"

"I mean, I know he's not mad," Cruz continues, ignoring Ramone's gentle objection. "I'm just not sure what he is. I just–"

They can hear the roar of Lightning's engine from here, echoing off the Butte in the still calm quiet of the desert.

" _Ramone._ He went without me." Cruz's tongue feels thick.

Ramone just shrugs. "So go catch him! The road ain't closed."

"But–" She's already interrupted his day once.

"Look," Ramone sighs. "I've gotta do some designwork for that Weathers kid today, so–"

"Cal?"

"Fancy planter boxes. He says they're for a friend. Anyway, you can't keep skulking around here afraid of Lightning. You'll get lonely, girl! No one's afraid of Lightning."

What he means is, stop being pathetic. She knows that's what it looks like. Sitting around, moping. Not confronting her tangle head-on. She's probably given all the advice she's been getting a hundred times–a thousand. But when she closes her eyes she's swerving down a desert road and throwing up on a tumbleweed. She feels so dirty.

"Are you Catholic?" Ramone asks.

"I'm sorry, what?" It's so out of the blue. No one's ever asked her that before. Except her one aunt, but that's just what she says when she's disappointed in you. Are you Catholic, or dead to her?

"Are you Catholic?" Ramone repeats, and says, "'Cause maybe think like, _propongo firmemente nunca más pecar_ –you know, that sort of thing. But hey, you didn't hear it from me."

–

Lightning sees her. He's wandering around the track more than he's racing it, but when she pops over the horizon he picks up the pace, slides around a few more times with real speed, then drops off to nothing, letting the dust settle. Cruz feels it pepper her cheeks.

"Hey!" he calls out to her. "How was the music thingy? Did you have fun?"

"It was 'fine,'" says Cruz, as she dips down into the canyon and joins him on the track.

"But you love music," says Lightning.

Cruz doesn't join the charade. "Mr. McQueen, pretending this morning didn't happen isn't going to help anyone."

Lightning's cheerful, if somewhat empty, expression falls. "I didn't want you to feel bad," he says.

"Well, I feel terrible!"

Lightning grimaces. "It's okay, Cruz, I–"

"But it's not, though," Cruz interrupts. "It was stupid. I was stupid. If I'd been in the city, or on an Interstate, driving like that I could've– I mean, if someone else had been out on the road, I could've– I didn't even have my headlights on, I could've–"

"I know!" Lightning shouts. Then, quietly: "But what am I supposed to say to that? What am I supposed to do?"

Cruz doesn't know. She just wants Lightning to know.

"I've never been in charge of anyone but myself before," admits Lightning. "I don't know how to do this. I guess… I feel responsible that like–"

"But this was my mistake, not yours."

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have had to–"

"I've been trying all day to figure out where I stand with you. You kept looking at me like–"

"That's what I came out here to figure out! 'Cause I don't know how I'm supposed to react, okay? Am I your friend? 'Cause Cal's gotten drunk and ended up on top of Willy's Butte before, so it's hard to judge– And _Bobby_ – Or am I supposed to feel like your crew chief? Am I supposed to suspend you? Is that even my call? This isn't the Cup. Or your mentor–"

"Friend," Cruz cuts in. "That's the part that's most important to me. Mr. McQueen, you never have to be responsible for me again, but I want us to always be–"

"Whoa, wait. You can't get rid of me that easily! I'm gonna show up and coach you whether you want me to or not." he teases, fake-angry. But Cruz doesn't want fake-angry.

"Then be mad at me! Yell at me!"

"You don't need me for that," says Lightning, the levity gone from his voice. "I know you, Cruz."

"A DUI is a _crime_."

"Yeah, and if I were Sheriff, maybe this'd be a different conversation. But that's not my job. And I guess–" Lightning looks past her, towards the red sky as the sun drops beneath the sand. "It's not my job to make things go away, or try and–I dunno, protect you when I can't. Or shouldn't. It's my job to let you be responsible to yourself."

"But I– I–" says Cruz. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "Thank you."

"Does that sound good?" Lighting asks.

Cruz rocks back and forth, deliberating. "Eh, delivery was so-so. I feel like it could be catchier, you know?"

"Oh, come on–"

"But it _feels_ good." It feels clear. Open. Absolute.

It feels honest.


End file.
